Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

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I sat in on the opening session of a Plympton school get together last Friday where pupils from all schools were being consulted on how the local education system could be extended to make their lives better. This is part of a government drive to introduce earlier starts, breakfast clubs, after school activities, holiday and weekend cover; all designed to extend the school day to care for children while parents bend their backs to put in those extra hours that modern life demands. On the surface, all very laudable – to give families what they seem to want, the freedom to work longer hours. The state now seems to think it its duty to provide wrap around cover for its citizens, irrespective of how we choose to live.

It put me to thinking: where will this all end? If you build more roads, more cars instantly appear to produce gridlock, so you keep building more until the land runs out. Better to have built more railways surely? If you put in place more school provision, more families will naturally take advantage of it, work longer hours and have even less contact time with their offspring. What will be the implications of that for these hard-pressed families, especially the children?

Are we not in danger of simply encouraging people to propel themselves even faster around the hamster wheel? Can it actually all be done without sacrificing the things that really matter: time, relationships, family, those special moments, an appreciation of the beauty of our planet?
The debate on global warming and the focus on reducing our carbon emissions gives us all an opportunity to take an even more profound look at the way we are living our modern lives. Maybe it is not enough to change our light bulbs to low energy ones, recycle all of our rubbish (Jan even seems to be washing out dog food tins in our house (why?)) and downsize the car. Perhaps it is time for every family to examine our lifestyle to explore whether we have got the balance quite right between work and home, the acquisition of material things versus an appreciation of deeper qualities.Will we be the first generation for centuries that has not passed on a better world to our children? The consumer-driven, helter-skelter lifestyle bubble must surely burst at some stage, perhaps when the next recession strikes. But who can turn around this super-tanker?

posted by Nigel on Monday, June 04, 2007